Animal Training

Animal training is an advancement to the traditional pet skill training through which a pet has, in the past, gained its skills. The training can be undertaken with any tamed creature be it fresh tamed or ‘fully trained’, ie with skills at maximum. The exception being pets requiring 5 follower slots, these are considered to be already at the maximum power and therefore not eligible for Animal Training.

Undertaking this training is aided by a daily ‘pet training hour’ beginning when the pet first gains in the training progress and increasing the amount of training progress the pet normally receives from a target.

A quest taken from an Animal Trainer NPC, found in the lands’ stables, will explain how to begin this process.

Pre-Publish 97 Pets

Using animal lore on a pet will reveal if, and how, your pet would be affected from Animal Training. Two figures are shown, the first is the pet’s slot requirement at the commencement of training, the second is its potential maximum if all possible training is completed. These changes will not be applied to existing pets unless Animal Training is undertaken.

Initial Training

Before skills and abilities can be added to a pet it must undergo some initial training. Begin this training by clicking the blue button pictured. Progress is shown in a bar at the bottom of the lore screen, by clicking the arrow to the right of the bar a further screen can be opened which shows progress in real time. Opening this screen closes the normal animal lore gump. In addition messages will tell you how well your pet is gaining “The pet’s battle experience has slightly increased” (alternately, fairly increased or greatly increased). The message “The pet does not appear to train from that” can mean that the pet has exhausted all the training it can achieve from that enemy. A fresh target is needed, this can be the same enemy type. Magic casting pets can also receive the ‘does not train’ message when the spells they are casting are not high enough.

Advancing Your Pet

When initial training is completed you will find a new option on the animal lore gump, pet training options. Click on the blue button to open the Animal Training Menu. The central button at the foot of the menu is “PLAN” clicking this button opens a new menu which provides trainers a method of viewing the total cost of the upgrades they would like to make to their pet. Toggle planning on by clicking “Enable” at the top of the new menu. Select your intended upgrades from the main menu and click the button “Add to Plan”. You may plan up to 20 selections at a time, which are subject to normal training restrictions, these are found by clicking the ‘INFO’ button on the menu and are also listed below. Selections can be removed from the plan by clicking the button to the left of the entry on the plan. Explore the training menu thoroughly and adjust your plan as needed, once you are satisfied with your training plan you can ‘Disable’ planning mode and begin training your pet using your plan as a guide and reference. Copy each setting from your plan to the training gump, when you are ready to apply a new property to your pet, select “Train Pet” and confirm you are ready to do so. Remember, all training is final, so be sure you are training the creature the way you wish it to be trained! The pet’s slot requirement will update when you apply the first property. Should you accidentally find you have points left at the end of the process and no where available to use them, mouse over the red button on the above gump this gives the message: Cancel Training Process. All remaining points will be removed. Click the button to remove your left over points.

The menu lists all of the available training properties you can apply to the pet.

The Categories pane shows the category of available properties

The number of training points available for the current stage are shown on the planning menu, along with a running total as you add items to your plan, you will need to give careful thought in order to spend them wisely, taking into consideration Training Point Weights, Training Point Weight Caps, Individual Attribute Caps and the restriction on schools of magic, special abilities and special moves documented in game and reproduced below.

A pet can only learn so much during each training level. As you mix and match properties from the Animal Training Menu, the amount of available training points will decrease based on your selections. Different property selections have different weights.

Stats and Resists allow you to increase individual Stat and Resist properties for the pet. This section also includes Base Damage

Caps and Cost Example

Much like imbuing, animal training uses points and different properties have a different point cost, in addition various attributes also have caps, both in groups and individually.

Strength, Dexterity & Intelligence have a combined training point weight cap of 2300, however the training point weight of strength is 3.0x and the attribute cap for strength is 700, so maximum strength would require 2100 of those points. Dexterity has a training point weight of 0.1x and a cap of 150, so 15 training points, Intelligence has a training point weight of 0.5x and a cap of 700, 350 training points. Therefore to reach cap in all three stats would require 2465 training points, more than the cap allows.The pet’s existing stats will be expressed in the menu as a training point figure, in the example pictured the pet’s strength is 134, ie 402 training points. If you chose to raise that strength to 334 it would require 600 training points which would be deducted from the available 1501 points shown. Full details of training point weight caps, individual attribute caps and training point weight costs can be found listed below.

Increase Magic Skill Caps and Increase Combat Skill Caps allow you to increase skill caps for various magical and combat related skills. This process requires the use of Power Scrolls and only increases the skill cap, you will still need to train the pet in the specific skill through traditional pet skill training. To raise a skill cap simply select the option while having the relevant powerscroll in your back pack.

Adding Abilities

There are four categories from which you may select abilities which will enhance your pet’s fighting capabilities, the page ‘Training Abilities‘ has descriptions of what each ability does.

Magical Abilities allow you to give the pet magical abilities in one of several spell schools.

Special Abilities allow you to give the pet special abilities, different than those traditionally found as weapon special moves.

Special Moves allow you to give the pet special moves, similar to those traditionally found as weapon special moves

Area Effects allow you to give the pet an area attack, targeting multiple adversaries with an area.

Selecting a new school of magic is not to be considered lightly, it will remove any innate magical ability the pet may have. You may only select a total of Three options from 5 possibilities over these four categories:

1 magical ability

1 special ability

2 special moves

1 area effect

These selections, along with any raised skill caps, will be displayed on a new page in the animal lore gump, Pet Advancements.

The choices available in these sections are governed by the pet’s classification, as listed in the tables below, and any abilities the pet already has. For example the special abilities ‘tail swipe’ and ‘grasping claw’ will not appear on the list for a pet dread spider since the creature has no tail or claws; such creatures as Nightmares and Drakes are not able to choose a special ability, they already have the special ability, Dragon Breath. This reduces your available options for these pets to 2. Rune beetles are so blessed with special abilities naturally than no more can be added at all.

Some Magical Abilities are so powerful that they require all 3 of the available options, example ‘Piercing’ which trains the creature in the bleed, armor ignore and paralyse special moves together with the Pierce and Thrust mastery abilities’. Some abilities have additional requirements, eg the special move ‘nerve strike’ requires the pet to have trained 50 points in Bushido.

When you train your pet, the number of control slots the pet requires will increase. The maximum number of control slots any pet can have is 5, however individual pets have maximum control slots they can be trained to. Once you have applied all available training points, if the pet is below its maximum follower slot requirement, the blue ‘Begin Animal Training’ button will reappear. Each stage of training will increase the pet’s follower slot requirement by one; pet slot level will increase when a creature is first customized. A pet with pack instinct will lose that ability as its slot requirement rises to a point where the ability to hunt with multiple pets is ruled out. Once the pet reaches its maximum slots the Pet Training dialogue line will disappear and no further advanced training is possible. Skill caps that have been raised through the addition of power scrolls will gain through traditional pet skill training, enhanced by the taming mastery spell, Whispering.

Caps and Costs

Training Point Weight Caps

Strength, Dexterity & Intelligence: 2300

Hit Point, Stamina & Mana: 3300

Resists: 1095

Hit Point Regeneration: 360

Stamina Regeneration: 360

Mana Regeneration: 360

Individual Attribute Caps

Strength & Intelligence: 700

Dexterity: 150

Hit Points: 1100

Stamina: 150

Mana: 1500

Resists: 80

Interim Caps on Base Damage

Base damage per second is capped based on slot level, the maximum of 22 only being attainable when options are applied to a 4 slot pet, raising it to 5 slot. This figure is not the same as the base damage figure shown on the animal lore gump, base damage per second of 22 will show on the pet’s lore gump as base damage 24 – 33